Main menu

Tag Archives: wasting your time

Post navigation

You know I’m here to protect you from the depredations of grifters and tricksters – flim-flam men and snake oil dealers. You know that. Well I’ve uncovered one of the most unethical and morally corrupt corporations out there and I’m here to protect you from them today. My sad personal tale and my suffering should stand as a warning to all of you. I’m willing to shoulder the shame that comes from admitting I’ve been bamboozled just for your sake. I’m that big of a person.

Today’s whipping boy is the shameful and corrupt Fitbit corporation, makers of various fitness tracker devices that purport to help people digitally, electronically, track their fitness, steps, diet, and sleep. Instead I’m going to show how this corporation is responsible for the death and disability of hundreds if not thousands of people here in the United States.

The Culprit

Although Fitbit makes a number of high buck tracking devices, my particular expose has to do with the “affordable” tracking device called the Zip. (see picture). Well, this $50 piece of unadulterated crap and the corporation behind it are responsible for the most shocking lies and one of the most pernicious shell games ever played on people trying to extend their miserable lives.

I had one of these Zip pedometer trackers given to me by my sister for my birthday. Now I’m carrying a little extra girth these days so I could stand to miss a few meals and take a few more steps. I know this goes against the lifestyle I’ve laid out for you, but if I die who will take care of you, dear blog reader? Nobody, that’s who. So I may need to stick around a little longer than I’d like just to make sure you are okay. Again, I’m that big a person. My sister cares for my life and gave me this little canker as a symbol of her affection, so I could lose a few pounds and keep the ol’ ticker going.

Worthless

Well I received the said device on July 14. At precisely 10:15 am on August 4 the dog turd purported pedometer called the Zip stopped working. It would not sync any longer to my Fitbit account. I tried everything the worthless Fitbit troubleshooting guide website said to do to resurrect this little piece of hell on earth: reinstall software, reset device, add as a new device, etc. The computer saw the little thingy, my particular device, but kept insulting me by saying there was no account paired to the device. I kindly contacted the Fitbit corporation by e-mail (no phone support, this should have started the alarm bells ringing) after doing everything the website suggested. Little did I know that this would open one of the most damaging experiences in my short stay on this mortal coil.

After giving me a bit of a runaround about taking it back to the store it was bought at (Target), they reluctantly agreed to send me a new Zip. They even admitted my device was defective. I was as happy as a clam at high tide. I even complimented the corporation, a certain Nancy R and the Fitbit Team, in my e-mail and said I would recommend their company’s products because their customer service was so helpful. Oh dear reader, did I make a grave mistake.

In due time the second implement of fitness evil arrived, a new Zip. Groovy. All is well with the world. I disable the old device and log into my Fitbit account. I insert the USB dongle. I install the software (for the third time!). The computer sees my new little tracker. I go to “add a new device” and it asks me for the dreaded four-digit code starting with zero (this had worked with the first device). To my utter bafflement there was no code displayed below the four little cubes on my computer screen. I hit the “Try Again” button. No dice. I see that it says below to click here for help. I click. I see the same worthless troubleshooting guide on the Fitbit website. Rage ensues. I rail about the insidious device on both the Amazon and Target websites.

I notice something on the Amazon website, 10% of the ratings for the Zip are one-star, if you add the two-star, 17%. I read the reviews. All say the same: “quit working, wouldn’t sync after X days, weeks, months.” (no more than the number 3 for X) Is something fishy in Denmark? Is there a faggot in the woodpile? You betcha. Fitbit has been flooding the world with these worthless little defective pedometer trackers for months, and knows it. How do I know, because each one of these Amazon complaints has the same comment from Fitbit attached to it:

“Randolph,

We’re sorry to hear that. We’re always happy to help you get setup. Please reach out (sic) to us at contact.fitbit.com for help. In your email, please include a link to this Amazon review, for reference. We very much look forward to hearing from you.

Best,Fitbit Support“

Here is my Amazon review:

“Piece of crap. Stick with Nike products. After my first Fitbit quit working (would not sync suddenly), complained to Fitbit and they kindly sent me a second one. When this one would not give me the four digit zero-code too, I tried EVERYTHING on the Fitbit website to resurrect both devices. The computer sees the device but either won’t give me the zero-code nor pair with my account. Yes, I did everything, I am not computer illiterate. I spent literally hours reinstalling software, etc. My time is worth something too. This is $50 wasted.“

Now here is the really criminal part. Some people purchased these hateful things for themselves or loved ones because they love and care about them. Maybe they spent their last $50. They want them to live a bit longer, be able to spend more quality time with them before they take the big sleep. Now what happens? The device fails, not just ruining physical fitness programs but raising blood pressure at the same time. And where, my dear friend, does this lead? Premature death because of the defective Zip device. Peoples’ lives ruined as they abandon health regimes the happy Zip face promised them. Heart attacks and strokes at the frustration of trying to follow the Fitbit “support” advice for the umpteenth time. Do you see where I’m going? This is not just having your iPhone break, not being able to text, but your very life essence drained as you despair about your wasted and now hopeless fitness program. Bingeing on Twinkies now to soothe a savaged soul. All because of the evil Fitbit corporation.

Well dear friends, I’m not taking this lying down. Well yes I am. Trying to get MY blood pressure under control even as I pass the word on to you.

Where the Zip will leave you.

I know,I know, I should have taken my own advice and always expected to be disappointed, and I see now how true this is especially when it comes to Fitbit.

Thomas Ligotti is my kind of guy, sorta. He always expects the worst. He spends all his time worrying about how he’s going to suffer and die and expects that everyone else is just the same, except some of us are better at fooling ourselves about the outcome. That makes him mad. He thinks all the folks that don’t worry about dying and suffering are deceiving themselves and just distracting themselves with ideas of afterlives or just having a good time, you know, trying not to think about it. And he’s right, but these other folks are a whole lot happier than he is. Now we can see the real problem, sorta.

Ligotti has a big head, a really big head and that’s why he thinks about all these dreary things all the time instead of watching television or playing golf. He’s always talking about how consciousness and self awareness are a tragedy and a curse on humankind; a crappy adaptation that evolution sneaked in there. The thing he forgets is most people are really unconscious most of the time anyway, even when they’re not sleeping; they’re clueless about this kind of stuff, so why does he want to remind them and take them into his pity party? Leave them alone with their fairy tale lives. Don’t bring ’em down. Don’t rain on their parade. Not enough hobbies I guess. Not enough television. Not enough high speed internet downloading those “short films.”

Well what’s Ligotti’s answer? Don’t have any kids. That’s it. What, you say? That makes him feel better about things? Yeah, his basic argument is that by having kids we doom all the future generations to the suffering and death we have so we shouldn’t have any: antinatalism they call it. Let the species die out. Well if Ligotti had any kids he wouldn’t be worrying about his great grandbaby’s suffering, he’d be worrying about his own suffering trying to deal with his own kids, getting them through college and boyfriends, etc. I bet his parents suffered plenty with him. Forget about future generation’s suffering. Besides his kids would be the kind that would suffer because all the bullies would rag them about their egghead dad.

I think his problem maybe is really low testosterone and therefore low sperm count. He isn’t gettin’ it on enough. Only those coffin chicks would even consider hangin’ out with him he’s so dreary and down. He needs to jerk it more too, take some of the tension and pressure off it. He can’t have kids so he wants us to join him. Sour grapes.

Ligotti writes a horror story about once every decade or so, when he isn’t feeling sorry for himself and the rest of us. They’re pretty good, but enigmatic. Now I don’t expect you to understand a word like that, nor a story like that, because you are correctly spending your time feeling good and not worrying about future generation’s suffering or how the joke’s on us. Stay away from funerals. Hide the razorblades.

Sure, we’re all going to step off the pier sometime, but why waste any time thinking about that? Remember I told you to always expect the worst, so now that that’s over let’s move on to feelin’ good.

I’ve given you all the prescription you need in this blog to quit thinking about that dirt nap: TV, NCIS, loud music, giant monster movies, malt liquor. So, mix up some cocktails and turn on the wide screen to some NCIS and put a Chuck Berry record on that stereo set ’cause we’re goin’ out with a buzz in our heads and a smile on our faces.

What’s so bad about feelin’ good for the rest of your miserable little life?

facebook is dead. Yep, you heard it here first. facebook is so uncool. It’s your grandma’s social network. facebook is trading recipes and gifs of Grumpy Cat. How cool is that? Cool as a Harley, right? You have to get out of your walker or wheelchair to get on one and then ride to a KISS concert. Maybe your live-in nurse can get you on it. facebook is the conversion van of social networks, complete with handicapped plates.

The Essence of Cool

I’m not sure where all the cool people went. It wasn’t back to MySpace. SoundCloud seems pretty upscale. Maybe Pinterest. Probably tumblr.

twitter seems to have hung in there. I think all the cool people went over there. So if you want to be cool get on over to twitter where the 4 billion cool people are. Be on the cutting edge and tweet your every fart. You know that hash-tag thing we used to call a pound sign. That’s where it’s at. This year’s model, anyway.

Pretty cool, two April Fool’s jokes on the same blog? Woot helped me out, but I did most of the heavy lifting. You saps went for it hook, line, and, sinker! All around the world even! Did that make my day, or what? I told you I’m putting in 110% for you and there you are, proof positive. Your dreary world got that much brighter because I put down the US government spies in a daft way and slipped (pun intended!) that Rhonda Shear bra thing in as well. Wasn’t that a hoot? I even thought about buying one myself just to show Woot my appreciation, but I’m not that dumb or wealthy.

No May Day posts though. It’s a communist pagan holiday like Labor Day. We don’t go for that here. Communism is like an enforced D minus effort and Liberty is what we are about; even if everyone would be better off in a D minus world. If you are stupid enough to not follow my easy, I mean easy, like no effort at all, life principles, well that’s your problem and I’ll defend your right to choose that desperate way of life all the way to the point where I have to use you as a human shield to defend that principle. Like I’ve said before, I’ve got your back even if you choose to be a human sandbag for me.

Whoa, steady in the boat there boy. I got a little worked up. Someday I’ll tell you why communism is the only thing worse than rampant capitalism as a world system (I know one is economic and the other is political, I’m not a ‘tard). Some other day when you are ready for it. Not now. All things in good time.

Okay here is another heads up and on-target essay so pay attention, no napping. The swill we used to call Malt Liquor is now referred to as Ale. Yeah, the high alcohol content brew that was for low-down drinking is now being foisted off on the public under designer and “craft” brew labels as India Pale Ale. Now I don’t drink anymore ’cause it interferes with my ability to try to make your life better, but I used to drink, a lot, and you can make of that what you want but right now today it makes me better than a swill-head like you so listen up.

When I used to buy a case of Mickey’s in college people gave me a hard time. They said I was going downscale ethnically. Being a man who ignored the bigot, I bought it anyway, better buzz, better value.

Well some bootleggers keen on evading government taxes got the bright idea if they could convince lawmakers to waive the tax on “amateur” brewing for “home” use it would be a good idea, for them. No doubt some grease was applied. ‘Nuff said.

Then these so-called home brewers wanted to share some of their 20 proof bathtub jack with their “friends,” and maybe serve some ribs on the side, so voila, the brewpub was born, again tax free with a little more lubricant applied. Now these clever entrepreneurs figured if they could convince the gullible, ie you, that this brew pub thing was upscale, then they could pick 5 bucks off you for a glass of their hooch. They quit calling it just beer and created the craft lager and ale market.

From there it was just a matter of scaling things up and signing up more rubes (with some more grease, of course) to buy their dishwater basement brau in the supermarket or gas station. All that for what we used to call cheap malt liquor. The stuff is nasty, bitter and sweet flavored at the same time. Then they started throwing apples, blueberries, oranges, and similar adulterants in to get the ladies onboard. Chumps and snobs.

Now you can’t get a Budweiser in a bar for all the taps that are dedicated to these and other “imported” (from Canada) bathtub gray water beverages. Well, you can just drink this overpriced crap with dead rats in it if you want. If I want a malt liquor, I’m getting a Mickey’s or a Cobra, something that burns going down, not something that gives you a sinus headache and makes my breath smell like Chanel No. 5. Go for it, it’s not my money.

I’m working up a Wiccan article for Walpurgisnacht, April 30, so just be patient, and if I don’t give you one, well if you are following this blog you are also used to being disappointed, and you expected as much, so it can’t get any worse now, can it? Have a Nice Day! Go pop one for me.

I know a lot of you have been waiting with baited breath for my next post, but I’ve been busy; unlike you I’ve been busy with this thing called Life. Oh sure, I’m still putting in 110% for you but now I have to put in 210% just to keep up with life too. And unlike you I don’t have a lot of “free time” on my hands jerking at work on your computer while you should be working on that spreadsheet and graph to make your boss look better. I also don’t want to waste your time with posts that are about nothing at all, although I happen to know you have a lot of time and something else on your hands. Unlike other bloggers my posts are always full of useful and important content, not just me blabbing about how I was constipated yesterday but now I’m okay. Who wants to read something like that? Other bloggers think you want to know whenever they pick their nose. Nobody wants that. Even somebody as important as the President of the United States, you wouldn’t want to know when he picks his nose, now would you? So I don’t waste your already worthless life with things that are not relevant to it and are all about me.

Be patient, as it says in Ecclesiastes: there is a time for everything, or something like that.

That International Feel post wasn’t that great. I’m a big man, in more ways than one, so I’m big enough to admit it was a D minus effort, but that’s water under the bridge, as they say. Unlike most of you I don’t make the same mistake twice so you don’t have to wait for another opportunity to poke your finger in my eye. Ain’t gonna happen. Get over it.

NSA Liberty

Hey, I bought this NSA t-shirt from Woot.com. The folks over there know about real patriotism. It says “NSA” but if you look really close it has all these little quotes from The Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, and their ilk, about freedom that makes up the NSA letters. I don’t expect many of you to know much about this or these guys but they are the true patriots of history and said way back then (18th century) that the NSA was bad and was going to spy on American citizens if somebody wasn’t vigilant and rat out the “Organization.” Back then the NSA just peeped in your window and opened your mail, but now it’s way more sophisticated as I’ve pointed out in previous posts. Pretty cool, huh? I suppose if I wear it in Washington “somebody” will just stick a microscopic poison pellets in my leg and that’ll be it. One of those cardboard box campers will end up wearing my shirt. The price of freedom.

Well I just wanted you to know I wasn’t dead but I’m also not one of those bloggers to put up a long post about nothing at all just so I can see my name in print. So until the muse calls again, I’ll be silent.

No, I’m not talking about groping foreigners so all you NSA peepers can leave now.

What I want to talk about is the increase and predominance of non-US hits this blog is getting. Either I’ve managed to thoroughly piss off the OUS community or people outside the United States are starting to now do what you in the US have only been able to do up ’til now: apply my life-changing formulas to your lives. I know which one I’m voting for.

Unlike people in the US, Europeans have long embraced my concept of a D-minus effort. Europeans enjoy months of vacation annually along with a holiday practically every-other week. In addition, work weeks are often legislated to be less than 40 hours and nobody has to worry about health insurance, so I’m surprised any Europeans or Canadians work at all since this lack is what primarily entices many Americans into the workforce in the first place. On top of this, scandalous unemployment has made, by comparison, the US look like the land of milk and honey it most certainly isn’t.

It is also clear that most foreigners embrace the concept of always making sure somebody else is that last guy.

Hey, now that I think of it, maybe I’m just preaching to the choir here. Perhaps most OUS hits are just losers affirming their lifestyle. Sometimes people just like to be reassured of things they already knew deep down inside.

What Foreigners Do for Fun

The worst thing about traveling internationally is television. Except for imported US programs, the fare produced and broadcast overseas is distinctly inferior. Britain is particularly bad with endless parlor dramas and talking heads all produced by the government. The fact that some of these shows are actually imported to America is beyond me. Most of them end up on public television, in other words US socialist TV. Hardly anyone except a few really old people watch public TV in the US so these imports hardly make a dent in the A+ prime US television offerings. The programs are mostly old so you get elderly US tourists to the UK going on about episodes of Eastenders from decades ago. East Germany had the worst TV I ever saw. France was the best with triple-X programs on the cable late at night that made Skinemax look like Mr. Rogers. In Japan the only thing going was the seemingly endless pop music programs.

Yeah, you know it. I’m talking about the Olympics, that Grecian spectacle of the best “amateur sports talent” the world has to offer. I could provide another cogent and timely expose about the Olympics in general, but you already know I’m going to focus on the ultimate in Olympic swindles: the Winter Games.

You already know of my disdain for the corrupt world of spectator sports in general from chess to the ultimate fixer sport: NBA basketball, so I’m not going over that again. There are numerous posts in the archive that any pinhead can see about the sorry state of spectator sports, so go there for the lowdown and my on-target comments on that life-entertainment waster.

Let’s jump right into the ultimate sports Ponzi scheme. If you hadn’t already figured it out the Winter Olympics is merely an inferior spin-off of the Summer Olympics. When the Olympics were brought back from their justly deserved grave there were only Summer games. This actually made some kind of sense since Greece, the site of the real historical Olympics, was a nice summery place. They didn’t even know anything about snow shoeing, much less ice dancing, in Greece. So some get rich media con men realized that playing childrens games only in the summer meant that only fair weather “sports” were going to be featured. “Hey, hows about we make some more money off the suckers by staging a winter event, then we can rake in a bunch more dough in places like Norway and Canada where the yokels are too stupid to know they could get a nice condo down South and avoid the bad climate?” Well, anyone with only half a brain like you could see that this was going to catch on with the masses like a bottle of Jack Daniels at an AA meeting.

Instead of having the only legitimate full-contact scoring sport possible for the Winter Olympics, ice hockey, the paddock had to be filled with such pseudo sports as curling, biathalon, speed skating, figure skating, cross country skiing, and similar non-events. The only thing close to a sport other than hockey were the so-called Alpine events which all basically consisted of seeing who could fall down a mountain the fastest. Again, I think you can see why these events would appeal to people who only see the sun for half the year. The incredible thing is these non-events are pandered to a global community population many of whom live in tropical or sub-tropical zones where they are still wildly popular to watch.

Not to be outdone in the con game, some wise fixer figured that having both the summer and Winter Olympics in the same 12 months was a marketing snafu so they brilliantly alternated the summer and winter games to be every other year. Now the suckers would have the five rings of confidence tricksters in front of them all the time instead of just once every four years.

This year’s Wintercon is in the former Soviet republic of Russia. In the Wikipedia entry for Sochi it is listed as not only claiming to be the longest (?) city in the world but “was primarily Muslim before 1864” but now is “primarily Christian.” I wonder what hallowed event in 1864 caused all those conversions? We are all hopeful that there are not some hunkered down Chechens in Sochi province thinking about 1864 intending to reenact the 1972 tragedy at the Munich summer games. Anyway, don’t let the Chechens compete in the biathlon and everything will be all right.

Official Sochi Olympics Welcoming Committee

Now that we have established Sochi as the Eastern bastion of peaceful ethnic bliss that every Olympic host city should be, we can get down to the real nitty-gritty of why this is the worst possible way you can spend your entertainment time this winter: boring and pre-staged. The fact that some of my favorite shows are going to be preempted for this sham is blasphemy and you know the other networks are just going to peg reruns and endless cycles of The Green Lantern until this ratings fiasco is over.

One of the biggest problems the winter games has is a dearth of scoring sports. Other than ice hockey it is really only curling and we already know that any sport where you can smoke a cigarette while playing it is going to be duller than dishwater. Really if you get right down to it you know this north of the border version of shuffleboard has gotta be sad when the hottest player is going to be known as “The Janitor.” I don’t care if there are curling clubs all over Canada. There are rats all over Calcutta and we don’t have rat bashing as an Olympic sport. I rest my case.

Speed skating dull. Ice dancing, not a sport. Figure skating, fixed and also not a real scoring sport. All downhill sports, dull except maybe for ski jumping. Ski jumping would actually be better if they put some of those tire slashers that they use to catch criminals down the slope. You would have to get over these clean to even place. Adds that Evel Knievel factor that would class up the “sport.” Bob sled and luge, again falling down a hill and too few spectacular crashes. X-sports, mainly to attract children and winter-bored skateboarders. All shooting sports, no comment except to say that live ammunition assassins along the course could make this worthwhile TV fare, even more exciting with a live audience along the way. Cross country skiing, give me a break!

So now you know the sad truth about another of the bread and circuses the suckered masses are going to sit down to instead of reading a book or watching the NCIS marathons on the USA cable network. Talk about wasting your life!

I took a little hiatus after the 50th post. I figured I deserved a little rest. Even a servant gets to sleep once in awhile. But I’m back and ready to take on another important topic for your betterment.

I was reading about this big bicycle race, the so-called Tour de France, the other day. I know it’s not really bike racing weather here in the northern hemisphere but no time is the wrong time when you find out something that is to everyone’s benefit. The Tour de France is a complete sham! A total spectator sport swindle. For those of you who don’t know what the Tour de France is, and I know many of you don’t get out of bed much, much less keep up with any sports other than boxing, professional wrestling, and dog racing, the Tour de France is a supposed bicycle “race” where guys ride bikes all over France and then finally come to a finish where somebody, no doubt some steroid crazed pretty-boy with a Hollywood contract already in his back pocket, “wins” the race. So what’s the big deal about that you say? I’ll tell you the many reasons why, and by the time I’m done you’ll want to take a shower if you just read about the Tour de France in the newspaper.

Let’s start this tirade with my usual disdain for “spectator” sports in general. Why anybody watches any other adult play a children’s game is beyond me. If you are not going to do it or aren’t trying to learn how to do it, why watch it? Everything from ice dancing to professional football is a waste of your life and valuable entertainment time. Let’s start with the basic statistics, you already know whatever team, or jockey, or bowler you are watching is going to lose approximately half the time. Who invites a 50% failure rate into their lives? Now I’ve told you all to expect the worst, but this is different, this is hoping for the worst and that is a much different thing my friend. Just because you know you are a loser doesn’t mean you have to roll out the red carpet for it. That’s just crazy!

The other reason I hate spectator sports is they are boring. Even when the time isn’t taken up with endless commercials for Duck Dynasty Chia Pets, nothing pretty much happens. Everybody just runs around mostly. Even in high scoring basketball, the ultimate fixer sport, only about one one-millionth of the time is actually spent scoring, the only half-way useful thing that happens during a “game.” Even if the scoring aspect was somehow increased in each sport, how much can you watch a ball going through a net or someone spinning in the air? Compare this to watching the Three Stooges or Castle of Blood and I think I’ve made my point. By comparison you sports fanatics are just wasting your useless lives. Besides, while watching films and TV shows you might actually learn something, like how medieval siege engines work, but you know nothing can come of watching that lacrosse contest. If the alternative in this hell we call life was watching a fly crawl up the wall, then maybe sports would be a step up from your present misery, but this just isn’t the case with cable, WiFi, satellite, and 4G available almost everywhere.

Typical “accident”

Next comes the rigging. Everyone knows that everything from wrestling to to tiddley-winks is run by the mob nowadays. The outcomes are more or less a foregone conclusion. If somebody steps out of line with a muffed dive or a caught pass, then they run the risk of keeping Jimmy Hoffa company. Once the big money came in, what little was left of interest in synchronized swimming was gone. For awhile drownings became synonymous with fair play until the athletes wised up and started following mafia orders. If this alone doesn’t put you off sports, well you are just a hopeless waste of human flesh.

Next we have to deal with the aesthetics of bicycle racing. The helmets are stupid, dorky looking things that sit on top of your head like a hen on a nest. At least in sports like auto racing, football, and hockey the headgear looks butch. Also those tight racing pants don’t look good on most people and are a turn off in a sport that you would think would want to be more inclusive. There is supposed to be zero contact in bike racing and even when there is contact the crashes are usually uneventful, unlike auto racing. ‘Nuff said.

Now here is where the real BS nonsense about the Tour de France comes in. Say it takes two weeks, ten days, a month, I dunno it doesn’t matter I’m too lazy to look it up and the exact number doesn’t matter; it takes more than a couple of days for the Tour de France to finish, it’s a really long race. But here’s the real crapola, they get to go to a hotel and get a hot meal and sleep a few hours every day before they all get up to start again at the same time from the same place! You think they are killing themselves with this day and night torture of riding all over France but really they are just having a nice ride, looking at a couple of chateaus each day, stopping for some wine tastings, and all finishing at the same place to have a few cocktails and some escargot each and every night. Who do they think they’re fooling?

Mafia “spectator”

Well, they also do this thing called “sharing the yellow jersey” which means that a different guy gets to do the heavy lifting each day while the others try to knock the other jockeys off their bikes or just enjoy the day. It doesn’t matter because they all get to start over again tomorrow unless they have a heart attack, fall off a cliff, or get run over by a car.

Typical steroid crazed pretty boy

So now you see how it goes. The only day that “matters” is the last day of the race. So everyone stores it up and gets their blood doped, and takes their steroid shot, eats a big spaghetti dinner, and skips the vino for that night and gets a good night’s rest.

So how do you win? Just give the yellow jersey to the best, most rested guy on the last day and have the other guys on the “team” throw banana skins out on the track all day. Except for the teams that are being paid off to take a dive. These teams drop out along the way due to so-called “accidents” like a squirrel in the spokes or a “leg cramp.” The fixers are all along the final leg of the race to make sure each racer does what he’s been paid to do. It has even been reported that a few “warning shots” have been taken at certain racers that had “second thoughts” about throwing the race.

Mob Fixer

So there you go, what was already as dull as dirty dish water to begin with becomes even less interesting when you realize it’s all a sham. The only real excitement that comes is if you can get an insider tip and make a little money off the race. Even then it’s not too smart to win too much because then you are going to get a visit from “Vinnie” and your dog is going to wander off or worse. If you keep your winnings modest all you’ll get is a “warning” Take it from me.

In recent times the Commissioner has tried to make the whole thing seem legit with trumped up charges of blood doping and steroid use. This is a joke. Everyone does these things. You could test any of the athletes and find the same thing. The only reason this happened is a new family in the mob took over power and now wants to show the others that they mean business.